****~ (4/5)

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Ever since he was a little boy, Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) has dedicated his life to mad science, inventing utterly awesome devices that nobody wants. In adulthood, he still lives with his bait-selling father (James Caan) in a little island community devoted to sardine fishing, his treehouse having grown into a high tech laboratory.

Nobody likes Flint because he’s nerdy and because his inventions tend to destroy public property. Success eludes him. Sardines taste horrible. His father is starting to talk about giving him a partnership in the bait and tackle shop. It’s at this low point that Flint accidentally makes something people actually love – a machine that hovers above the city and rains down food of whatever description ordered.

Enter Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), perky meteorologist and love interest, to cover the story, and when the island’s economy has become dependent on tourism and free food, the stage is set for something to go horribly wrong.

The plot in this Sony Pictures animation (and how refreshing it is to get a break from a steady alteration of Pixar and Dreamworks) depends on a number of near-successes that fail at the last moment, bringing on a steady shower of disasters, and leading to an ending that, while uplifting, leaves a lot yet to be done. Sure, it stopped raining giant steaks and the spaghetti hurricane has abated, but there’s a lot of destruction left behind and still no viable economy for their one-industry island.

Much of the humour, originality and gross-factor of the film is made up of all the ways that giant food can be used for purposes it was never intended for. I find this magnifies when you remember what a roasted chicken actually is: a dead bird. A bird that used to be alive. A corpse. Which is now sentient. And now, here you have the roasted and skinned zombie bird being worn like a suit by a naked man. Think about it! That alone should make this film a hit with a certain age group.

That’s not the only thing to recommend – or condemn – the film, though. It has an adorable nerd hero (the man has a Nikola Tesla poster) and heroine (all it takes is a jell-o scrunchie), the mockery of everything essentially cool such as elaborate fights, heroic cops and CSI-style sexy science montages, and a hilarious dressing-down of jock-favouring superficiality. The best character in the whole film, though, is Flint’s father Tim Lockwood, whose steady, slow, responsible persona is at odds with Flint’s chaotic high energy and scientific brilliance, and whose sorrow and perseverance are shown rather than told to heartbreaking effect.

Romance and self-actualization aside, the story was about fathers and sons, and the miscommunication, generational language barrier and underlying love – and the pain that arises from it – is pitch-perfect and almost painful to watch, but worth it just for that final coming-together.

Was it perfect? What is? Parts were predictable, even more seemed contrived just to keep up the tension and excitement and the edge-of-final-destruction scenarios, and as I mentioned before, there was the small matter of the town remaining essentially unsaved in the end. All in all, though, the film was laugh-out-loud funny, heart-warming (I know, what a word), charming, moving, somewhat infantile and immensely entertaining. What more do you want?

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Bechdel test:
1. It has at least two female characters,
2. who talk to each other
3. about something other than a man.

There were three women with lines and names in the film, that I recall: the dead mom (by now all but obligatory for feature animations), the love interest and the police constable’s wife.

****½ (4.5/5)

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Andy is grown up and going to college. His once-beloved toys have spent years tucked away in a box, and are expecting to either go to the attic or to the landfill. Instead they end up donated – by accident – to the Sunnyside kindergarten. Sunnyside seems like a dream come true for discarded toys, but the dream soon turns into a nightmare.

The toys have to deal with the heartbreak of rejection as well as trying to find a place in a world where they have no owners. It seems almost cruel that they also need to fight some of the creepiest evil toys ever created by human imagination. I say that, and I have seen Akira.

What can I say? They really pulled all the breaks in this one. I laughed, I cried, and I found myself surprised and impressed by its emotional brutality. I had been expecting more of the same kind of light entertainment that we got with Toy Story and Toy Story 2; instead, this film explored themes such as loss of family and identity, the cyclical withering of love and innocence, and even the quiet acceptance of impending death. Heavy stuff – and unflinchingly delivered. And did I mention the creepy toys?

There was a lot of fun and funny stuff in this film too, from the opening live action version of playtime as it appears in a child’s imagination, to toy-like action heroics by Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) – not to mention his Spanish mode – but as my girlfriend put it: “If this didn’t make you cry, you have no soul.”

I should mention that we also meet the cutest little animated girl since Lilo, that I want a son just exactly like Andy, and that I seem to have a soul.

Dreamworks has been focusing on Ken (Michael Keaton) – Barbie’s boyfriend – in some of their promos, and he’s worth it. He got some of the biggest laughs. You could write a paper just on the film’s depiction of Barbie (played by Jodi Benson, and no longer the brainless sex object of Toy Story 2) and Ken and what it says about gender and presentation. Suffice it to say that Ken’s fabulousness is made into a running joke. Perhaps we should look into exactly why a metrosexual man is so funny. Is it because this is Ken, a picture of perfect masculinity presented to pre-teen girls, or because a man who loves glittery tuxedoes is automatically ridiculous? I’m happy to say that Ken does get to be a real character with an arc instead of just a punchline. Ken has agency, and the toys we actually like – Buzz and Woody, etc – accept him and his baby blue safari neck scarf without so much as a blink. In fact, his joining the good guys’ side coincides with his final happy acceptance of his own nature as a “girl’s toy”. Make of that what you will.

Other potentially objectionable jokes/stereotypes include the afore-mentioned Spanish Buzz, which presents a stereotypical (if not negative) Latino masculinity along the lines of Shrek’s Puss in Boots, and the continuing heteronormativity of Mr and Mrs Potato Head. The romance between Buzz and Jessie (Joan Cusack), though fun to watch, seemed as forced and pasted on as it did in the end of Toy Story 2, but then this film isn’t about them – it’s about the love between toys and their owner, and the sense of family that has developed out of years of friendship, and that packed all the punch you could hope for.

Children are strange creatures, so I can’t say how much they will enjoy this film, if it will make them scared or make them cry. Maybe that’s just us adults. If you’re an adult reading this, though, I can only recommend you see this film. Bring a handkerchief.

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Bechdel test:
1. It has at least two female characters
2. who talk to each other
3. about something other than a man.

Andy and Bonnie’s mothers talk to each other about their children, though that conversation turns to Andy. Bonnie and her mother talk to each other, and Andy’s mom talks to his sister about her toys. There were plenty of female characters among the toys (Mrs Potato Head, Barbie and Jessie being the most prominent ones, but there were also some new female toys), but I can’t remember for sure if they spoke to each other.

http://www.tananarivedue.com/

****½ (4.5/5)

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Jessica has the perfect marriage, but her husband has a secret. He’s a killer. He’s also an immortal with blood that heals.

That summary does no justice to the scope of this novel. It’s remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least of it is the slowly oppressive style, the attention to detail and historical accuracy and vivid, realistic character portraits. It’s also remarkable in that it’s a fantasy novel in which most of the characters are black.

Jessica doesn’t find her husband’s secret sexy or exciting like she might in a lesser novel. She doesn’t stay with him after she finds out he’s a murderer. She reacts with horror, as you would, but at the same time has trouble breaking off the family bond she had with him. She is a Christian, but her religion is neither touted as the one true way nor made to look silly or insignificant or false; it simply is a huge part of her, and informs how she reacts to the knowledge that there is real, true magic in the world. Dawit, the immortal whose story this is as much as, if not more than, Jessica’s, goes through a hell of his own trying to protect his family and keep his secret, even as he bloodies his hands again and again.

The plot takes elements that have become downright cliché in genre novels – immortal lover, idyllic American home hiding terrible secrets, a mother protecting her child, an ancient occult order hunting the protagonists – and applies research, realism and a sense of real tragedy to them. On occasion I found this incongruity jarring, jerking me out of the novel and back into my analytical head, despite the fact that I love the idea of reclaiming clichés in this sense. The only other criticism I can levy is that the plot’s slow inevitability sometimes made me impatient and I found myself sneaking peeks at coming events just to assure myself I hadn’t figured out absolutely everything that was to come, yet. I hadn’t – and in any case, the rich storytelling made every turn of the plot, anticipated or not, a delicious read. I can see, though, how this might make it difficult reading for some. I find that sometimes a book and its reader need to match, or the rhythm of the novel might make reading it impossible, despite its length or literary excellence. I was just a touch out of rhythm with My Soul To Keep.

This is not a very fun book to read, but it’s compelling, powerful and just plain impressive. It’s the sort of novel that makes you look askance at the other fiction you’ve been reading and think, “Shouldn’t they have tried a little harder?” Due is a brilliant author, and I am happy she chose to write in one of my favourite genres.

****~ (4/5)

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Young Viking Hiccup just doesn’t seem cut out for dragon-slaying, being more inclined towards building contraptions and swooning over the local teen champion Astrid. When, desperate to prove himself, he manages to capture a mighty dragon whose death would cement his social standing, he finds himself unable to slay it even as it lies helpless. Instead, he ends up befriending it.

Yes, it has dragon-riding Vikings. If you’re anything like me that’s all you need to know. The film kind of got me with the first teaser poster I saw.

It’s not perfect, hence four stars instead of five, despite the fact that the film made me personally happier than any other in a very long time, and despite the pure awesomeness that is the whole concept of dragon-Vikings.

The film is based on a children’s book by the same name by Cressida Cowell, but the plot, setting and even the dragon called Toothless were completely reworked by Dreamworks. I can’t judge if this was the right decision or not, but it does explain why the plot is typical enough to be predictable almost plot-point by plot-point. This is easy to overlook since, sadly, predictability is almost to be expected in a feature animated film – though I might argue How To Train Your Dragon has an even less original plot than most. For me, the one cliché too much was the fake death scene. You know the one – you see it in just about every animated film. X is dead! Oh no! The crowd stares at the spot where X fell with hope failing on their expressive faces. Someone falls on his knees and delivers a heart-felt speech to the departed. But X is not dead after all! Everyone cheers! Yeah. That one.

The film does kick the corporate creative cowardice on some notable issues, such as portraying a pleasing amount of violence, tough girls (well, not many), non-heteronormative (though hetero) teen romance, nerd pride and loss of limb. Plot predictability is made up for by the originality of the setting and some of the characterisation – which I suspect has more to do with Cowell than the Dreamworks writers (or their marketing and research department) – and in, well.

Being awesome.

If one’s adult brain can shut up long enough to accept and ignore the clichés, one gets an amazing animated film of dragon flight, fighting giant monsters, flaming islands tumbling down into the sea, nerd-boy social success, laughs, vivid character design, and goddamn Vikings on dragons.

Yeah. What are you waiting for? Go see it!

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Bechdel Test:
1. It has at least two female characters
2. who talk to each other
3. about something other than a man.

****~ (4/5)

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Note: I link to a fan Wiki above because I don’t trust network websites to stick around nearly as long for cancelled shows.
Warning: The review below contains profanity, spoilers and triggery subjects such as politics, sexism, cissexism, racism, ableism and fat phobia. I assure you I personally am against all the things on that list, except politics. Well, sometimes politics too. It’s also rather long.

Marathoning our way through the five seasons of Boston Legal, the cry most likely to be sounded by myself and my girlfriend Gilly was “Oh, Denny!” – in various tones of exasperation, amusement and (particularly in Gilly’s part) adoration. We made a lot of sounds, come to think of it – groans, howls of laughter, screams of joy and a fair amount of squealing and whimpering. On occasion I had to hide my face. You could say it reached us.

Boston Legal is about the law firm of Crane, Poole and Schmidt. Denny Crane (William frickin’ Shatner) is a fading star lawyer, a gun-toting Republican from a bygone era, who’s becoming more eccentric and less reliable as age and Alzheimer’s precursors eat at mind. Edwin Poole (Larry Miller) shows up to work without trousers or drawers on in the first episode of the show and is quickly carted off to a mental health clinic. Shirley Schmidt (Candice Bergen) is not only sane, but brilliant and tough as nails. Alan Shore (James Spader) is an upstart in the firm, a successful sleaze, an engaging combination of amoral and highly moral – perhaps the term is differently moral? He will resort to blackmail to win his cases, but also argue with true passion when he believes his cause is just. Denny, Alan and Shirley are the three pillars of the show. The rest of the characters, though many are compelling, flit in and out of the picture. Alan and Denny, two very different people, are also both some degrees in love with Shirley, but their best and truest relationship is with each other.

This show was a lot of fun. There was a lot one had to overlook, and I’ll touch on those points in a moment, but, you know what? If you can overlook them, this show was just buckets, oodles and piles of fun.

It’s hard for me to stay objective on the subject of this show, so let me first tell you my love story and get it over with. Like most love stories, it’s not free of moral turpitude.

I first met Alan Shore in the eighth and final season of The Practice. I had watched and been disturbed, amused and educated by David E. Kelley’s shows Picket Fences and Ally McBeal before coming across The Practice, which I never paid a great deal of attention to, but enjoyed, especially the moral dilemmas faced and ignored by lawyers who defended – and got off – the worst kinds of criminals. I began to notice the pattern that is evident in just about every case-by-case cop or law show, and beyond: that of presenting a moral dilemma and discussing it in a way most likely to be agreed with by the target audience. Moral dilemmas are easy hooks – we always find them interesting, because they always concern us and our opinions on some level, even when they appear to be about Random Criminal or Victim of the Week, or Boring Regular Cast Member Who Is There To Ask Questions And Not To Have a Personality. The difference between a David E. Kelley show and, say, CSI or Law & Order, is that his shows are always character-driven. You had the case, but the regular cast were important, not to mention interesting, and actually had stories and character arcs of their own that didn’t have the feel of being pasted on. There are other staples: skinny lawyer girls, funny judges, workplace romances/sex, characters with various social dysfunctions or ticks, involving politics and current events, etc.

But I’m wandering off the point, which is Alan Shore. He showed up in The Practice and installed himself, explaining his old firm has a bit of a problem with his embezzling. I instantly hated him and was intrigued by him. The moment that the hate turned into fascination and something approaching, well, total fangirling, was when he told a man who likes to clean toilets to not be ashamed of his fetish. What of it? said Alan Shore.

I don’t think you’re sick, Mr. Fosterling. I think you’re peculiar, but . . . a lot of us are quite peculiar. And maybe with a little help, you could find a way to continue to enjoy yourself that doesn’t make you hate yourself.
- The Practice, Episode  Season 8 Episode 5, ‘Blessed Are They’

At this point, while I still thought Alan Shore was a sleaze, I suddenly loved him. This would set the tone for my relationship with Boston Legal.

The Practice was cancelled and Boston Legal green-lighted and I continued to watch, for Alan Shore. I got to know Denny, fall for Shirley and, at some point, stopped watching, because life got in the way. I have no idea what happened. This was years ago. I remembered the show fondly, though, and when my girlfriend fell for William Shatner (I have had to learn to put up with these things) I said, hey, did you know he was in a show called Boston Legal? We bought a season and so it all begun again.

We laughed, we groaned. We fell in love despite ourselves. I guess all it takes is to make a girl laugh, and maybe show some intense male bonding that calls to the slasher in every – well, most fangirls. In our case, it didn’t hurt that the shows politics were liberal and the moral dilemmas tended to be ones we could identify, or, of course, that it starred William frickin’ Shatner – and James Spader, who’s been making my bits flutter since I was really too young to be fluttered. I am not particularly proud of this bit of shallowness, but there you have it. What cinched the deal was, as you might expect from a David E. Kelley show, the characterisation. Alan starts out as a great, cold, witty character, who warms considerably throughout the show. He loses some of his thrilling amorality in the process, but he can afford to do so, for I’m still in love, and it’s what I wanted for him anyway. Denny is intense and larger than life and just gets more outrageous as the show progresses, but is at core also a tragic figure, the twilight of a king. Perhaps it’s the fact that he’s in his twilight that makes him likeable – in real life, I’d find him a terror and a menace, especially if he was at the top of his game. And Shirley, oh Shirley. She gives as good as she gets and then some, beating Alan’s famous wit on her first appearance. ILU SCHMIDT. …Ahem. The others, the disappearing associates, also have some true gems among them.

So what is it that you have to overlook to love this show? The worst of it arises out of the sexist, racist, thoughtless, violent, pro-war patriotism of Denny Crane. This is actually quite insidious. Denny is a sympathetic character, even though Boston Legal‘s politics – which show! – are against him. The show took blatant pot-shots at George W. Bush, John McCain, Sarah Palin and many others, argues against the death penalty and for woman’s right to choose (not without some quibbles, though – the position seems to be that fathers should get a say in it too, despite the issue in question not involving their bodies in a life-threatening process, but whatever), for women’s rights in general, for protection of the environment (especially salmon) and for government and corporate responsibility. In comes Denny, then, and says McCain should be president because women are easier to get into bed during a Republican administration – after all, they’ve given up on their rights and are more likely to be depressed. Denny makes a sex doll in Shirley’s image, Denny shoots homeless people with paintball guns, Denny wants to get in the military because it makes his penis feel bigger, Denny fires a fat woman for “being fat”, an excuse as he’s actually firing her for not having sex with him. Denny is outrageous. The others are outraged. But they love him really, the silly old coot.

The insidious thing about this is that by having Denny say and do these extreme things, you tend to overlook it when someone else says something less bad – as if it wasn’t still bad!

Examples:

Denny grabs opposing counsel’s ass. Alan uses sexual talk to discomfit her and gain an edge.
Denny fires a woman, claiming her being fat as the reason (despite being fat himself). Alan defends the action in court by referring to the good old “fat people are hard on the economy” schtick.
Denny says midgets are sexual dynamos and into group sex. Everybody else pretty much gets to say whatever they want about little people after that.

You end up getting the impression that the milder versions of racism, ableism, sexism etc. are really okay and you don’t have to be ashamed of them – after all, you’re not sexist, not like Denny Crane. That sweet, silly, old-fashioned man.

Let’s highlight some of the issues a bit more.

Racism
When Denny uses “he doesn’t sound black” as a positive, Shirley is shocked and has a talk with him, and it becomes news and puts the firm in a bad light, but in the end the episode ends up defending this kind of casual racism – “because black talk exists”, “privileged folks aren’t mean if they don’t know they’re being offensive”, etc. Somebody missed out on Racism 101 (see points #8, #10 and #11, for starters). I also notice that the show has only one black regular who lasts for more than one season (Clarence Bell – more on him later), who was also the only male one, and also the only fat one. In fact, there’s only been one other non-white regular – Whitney Rome (Taraji P. Henson) in Season 4. The others, the pretty black girls (Vanessa Walker, Chelina Hall, Sara Holt), show up for a few episodes and then mysteriously disappear. Alan Shore comments on this in one of the last episodes of the show, ‘Thanksgiving’, by referring to the firm’s racist bias, raising Shirley’s ire. Oh, and according to the series two-part finale, Chinese corporations are evil. I’m sure there’s a hell of a lot more that could be said about this, but let’s move on.

Ableism
Dwarfism: The introduction Bethany Horowitz (the wonderful Meredith Eaton) opened the door to a lot of dwarf jokes, the most persistent being Denny having a conversation about Bethany with someone else and not noticing Bethany’s standing between them because of her height. Bethany’s a wonderful character. She’s outspoken, unrelenting and pretty much wipes the floor with everyone in the show, but she also inexplicably dates Denny (I’ll get to the subject of inexplicable attraction the show’s women feel towards men who behave like pigs later), and her objections are sometimes presented as reactionary rather than reasonable, such as her suing Denny for public defamation when he blurts out “midget!” on their first (blind) date. Does this make up for the fact that her height is a source of comedy? You know what, it kind of does. The sad thing is, as far as I can tell, this is far better than little people in television or movies can usually expect.
Asperger’s Syndrome: Though they include pleas for understanding and respect for the “odd ticks” of the sweet, brilliant Jerry Espenson, a sympathetic character, it’s laughs he mostly gets. In addition to this, his condition is seen through-out the show as a burden, something to be controlled and directed with “life-saving” medication to help him adjust to the neurotypical environment he must move in, when many autistic people would reject this pity-approach and demand abled people are the ones who should do the adjusting.

Cissexism
When Clarice Bell walks in the first time and complains that her workplace won’t give her maternity leave to adopt a child, she’s greeted with stunned stares. What “everyone” is thinking is voiced by Claire Simms (Constance Zimmer): “My God! He’s like a total transvestite. Are you kidding me? It’s a big black man in a frock.” (Season 3 Episode 2, ‘New Kids On the Block’) The fact that it’s later revealed that Clarice is just the first among several personas put on by Clarence Bell, a shy man who has trouble dealing with the world as himself, doesn’t actually change the fact that Denny, Alan and Claire all saw female-presenting Clarice and dismissed her gender as fake. And no, the fact that Claire later starts to teach him self-confidence by practically bullying him into being Clarence, and then becomes his girlfriend, also doesn’t help. It really does not.

Sexism
For me, this is kind of the big one, which might just be because while I’m not a person of colour, disabled or transgendered, I am a woman. There is no end to the degrading, objectifying remarks Denny and Alan make on a regular basis. They themselves say that they objectify women, and that their first thought upon meeting a woman is “Would she? Would I?” Alan often makes the excuse that this is how all men think, and he is at least honest about it. Whereas Alan is capable of listening to, respecting and appreciating women, however, Denny’s brain goes whizzing into space at the first appearance of a woman he finds attractive, which is pretty much every female. The love of Denny’s life is Shirley Schmidt, and he doesn’t even listen to her. Shirley repeats herself, explains herself patiently, shows Denny in various ways what she means, and yet all Denny can see is: “She wants me.” Granted, that’s Denny’s usual code for “I want her,” but that still doesn’t tell me why Shirley hasn’t shot him in the gonads with one of his paintball guns yet.
Also, see what I did there? Alan treats every woman as available, uses sexual advances as a way of gaining power over women, but, hey, at least he’s not Denny Crane. What’s worse is that Alan sleeps with almost every woman on the show except Shirley Schmidt. One of his constant pick-up lines/unwanted advances is “Secretly, you want me.” And what makes this an issue with the show rather than a sample of Alan’s characteristic sleaziness? They do. Even Shirley. If the issue with that is not obvious, let me put it another way: I find this a case of blatant Marty Stuishness that enables in a lot of other sleazy guys their favourite fantasy: women find creepiness hot! And in case it’s still not obvious, let me lay it all out for you: no they fucking don’t.

Fat Phobia/Shaming
Denny calls Lori Colson (Monica Potter) “chubby” (she’s nowhere near), later says he likes “chubby sex”, and a fat judge is paraded as grotesque and lazy on the “fired for being fat” case. Admittedly the relationship with weight on the show is ambiguous. In one case, Alan accuses the makers of fatty, sugary treats of selling harmful, addictive substances that endanger a person’s life; on another he calls for organized fat shaming in order to reduce the number of obese people. On a third, a girl is sued for having a pro-anorexia website. Denny’s comment to the girl? “You’re too skinny. Eat.” One obvious fact of the show is that there are no overweight female regulars on the show; in fact some, like Lorraine Weller (Saffron Burrows) are downright skeletal, but no comment on that is made. There is a profound irony in Denny, a fat man, allegedly firing a woman for being fat, but it kind of fits with the make-up of the show: women are there to be thin and hot (to who?), men to be interesting.

Dear me, it sounds like I hate the show now, doesn’t it? And yet, I somehow manage to overlook (though not ignore) all of the above.

One flavour of intolerance the show does not seem to engage in is homophobia. There are no regular gay characters on the show. There are visiting lesbians and one gay male antagonist, but aside from objectifying the lesbians (which I think is more of a sexism issue), being gay is assumed to be okay, and media homophobia is attacked by Alan in court. Denny declares himself homophobic early on, but for once no-one then jumps up with a milder anti-gay sentiment. Plenty of humour (especially varieties #3 and #4 on Humon’s gay joke type break-down) is wrung out of perceived male homosexuality which is also presented as not really real, such as Alan’s sexual teasing of the straight-laced Brad (Mark Valley) in the first season and later the exponentially increasing intimacy between Denny and Alan, who even refer to themselves as married to each other – they love each other, talk about loving each other, hold hands, sleep in the same bed sometimes, and pretty much have an epic love story with just that one tiny final squibble of not having sex together. Well, I guess they wouldn’t want to lose the ratings.

I said once above that my love of Alan Shore is reflected in my relationship with Boston Legal. I love Alan Shore because he seems cold, numb even at times, apparently heartless, and then he turns around and crusades against “windmills”, as Shirley Schmidt puts it: getting fired up for the rights of the abused, the disenfranchised, the weird, battling ideologies as much as the cases. He cares a hell of a lot, which is why he puts on that sleazy demeanour, deadens his feelings and backs down from now one. A villain on the surface, Alan Shore is a man of passion, pain and compassion, fragile and hard and bending in turns, and he does not judge, whatever your kink or dysfunction. It seems to me he makes a distinction between sin and evil, believing in the latter, but not the former. He’s the product of an unhappy childhood spent with cold parents and cruel schoolmates, who fought his way into his own power through his intellect and force of personality. The fact that he finds unquestioning companionship and love with Denny, only with the threat of Denny’s deterioration hanging above them… I want to hug him. Even if it’d just make him skeeze.

And Boston Legal? The lawyers of Crane, Poole & Schmidt bond with and care for each other, help each other, take on crazy cases, tolerate and even celebrate each other’s oddities, push the envelope, address pretty much every issue that’s been in American newspapers during its run, and do it all with a big wallop of humanity, never forgetting to celebrate human kindness. Boston Legal? After five seasons of screaming and laughing with it, I want to give it a big hug. Even if it’d just make it skeeze.